Chapter 4

The flight back was a repeat of the flight out, except I knew how to handle security now, and when dad showed up at the airport to get me, I made sure to hug him tight.

School Monday morning was all abuzz, but the topic wasn’t good at all. It seems that over the long weekend, two girls went missing, both of them young and Hispanic. One was eight, the other was seven, and no one seemed to have a clue where they disappeared to.

One was last seen out at Lake Buchanan, near the Bluebonnet Lighthouse and the picnic area, where her family was celebrating the holiday weekend. The other was similar, in that they were at the lake too, but over at the Willow Point Resort, just a mile or two away. Neither of the families knew each other, and no one reported any strange behavior or admitted seeing anything. The Parks Department and the Department of Public Safety had been out searching the lake, thinking one or both had drowned, but they turned up nothing.

The scariest part of all was that there were two more girls reported missing, the previous weekend, but further south. Still along the Colorado, one was reported from Sunrise Beach Village and one from Horseshoe Bay. It was all over the news, but I had spent the evening talking to Mike and daddy about what the testing was like, and about my trip to ground zero in the city. I hadn’t watched the news like I had taken to doing since I got involved in this hero business.

As soon as I had a chance, during my lunch break, I called Control to see if they had any information. They reported the same thing I had been hearing, but added a fifth girl from two weeks prior that the police were now thinking was linked to the more recent missing children. I felt a bit guilty, but Control said they even had someone do some quick overflights of my county while I was gone.

The truth is that even had I been here, the chances of me being in a position to see and stop an abduction was pretty slim. Now that I was back though, you can bet your behind I was patrolling and I was heading north along the water like this person, or these people, seemed to be travelling.

As soon as school was out, I was on my bike and heading home. It was simply too hot to wear the leathers the folks in New York had given me, and besides, I was planning on being on or near the water, and that stuff wasn’t all that water proof! I would wear my short uniform like always, and the belt with my mask and other gear it in in case I wanted to transform.

I let daddy know where I was headed and hit State Route 29 to the lake, then cut off at 261, ‘cause it circled the lake heading north on the far side from home. Technically outside my patrol area and outside my county, my remit was federal and my county was only a suggestion. There were no worries about jurisdiction for the Bureau, so no worries for Paladins either.

I stopped in at the Lighthouse and again at the resort to ask around, but learned nothing new, not that I really expected to. I took my time and rode through the local neighborhoods around the lake, asking folks if they had seen anything. Thing was, folks seemed about as suspicious of me as they would have been of any stranger showing up and asking questions, so I felt like I was spinning my wheels.

I was up by Jeckers Cove, sipping a water I bought from a gas station when my Control phone rang for the very first time! I answered it as I was told to, with my guest name.

“Lone Star.”

“Lone Star, Control, we have a communication for you. Paladin El Gallo is flying over your area and would like to meet up. He wants to offer his help with the missing girls. Can you effect a rendezvous? He is coming south from the panhandle, so if you could meet him about two and half miles north, where 261 meets 225, there is an unoccupied vacation home near, but no other residents. He can meet you there in about ten minutes if that is convenient.”

“Okay, Control, I’ll meet him there. This is new for me, so are there any protocols to be followed? Anything I should know?”

“Negative Lone Star, use your best judgement. We screen everyone, but nobody is perfect.”

Great, that made me feel better.

I mounted up and left the RV center in a hurry, giving the bike some gas because I wanted to be early. I stopped half way, along the road and, since there was almost no traffic, I just had to step into the scrub oaks and strip off my shorts and shirt, stick them in my saddle bags. Mask and gloves on, a quick change into Lone Star and was as anonymous as I could get with short notice.

Even with the short stop, I was still there in just five minutes, so I parked the bike in the shade of tree at the cutout between the two roads and walked out to the middle of the dirt and looked north. It wasn’t long before I could see something coming my way, not very far up in the air either, and when it started to slow, I could see a guy dressed in red, white, blue and green! This guy went all out on his costume.

The costume was a leather suit, like mine back at the house, but it was split vertically, with half of the jacket decorated with the Texas flag, and the other half, the Mexican flag. His pants were the American flag and I just didn’t even know how to take this.

I smiled, trying to keep it welcoming and not break into laughter, he probably wouldn’t appreciate it.

He winged in to a hover, looking down at me with a grin, then floated down to land on his feet. He was wearing one of those domino masks, like the Lone Ranger, but in white and his hair was bone white too, even lighter than mine.

When he landed, he had to really crane his neck to look up at me, he wasn’t but about five and a half feet tall! With a snort, he grinned and, with a wave of his hands, he floated up until he was eye to eye with me and stuck out one hand.

“Wow! You are something else, Ma’am. I am El Gallo and you must be Lone Star. You know, you registered just before I did and I was disappointed to hear that Lone Star was taken. Ah well, these things happen and El Gallo was what my grandmother called me, always strutting around the playground!” He winked at me and seemed pleased with himself.

This guy was quite a character and had an infectious smile. He had almost no accent, something that surprised me considering his outfit ... I expected a heavy Mexican accent like the guys fresh across the border, not the cultured English of the Tejanos I had met. I shook his hand, being careful because he seemed so slight, but he laughed.

“No need to be so careful, senorita, I am practically invulnerable ... so far at least, and as long as I am in the air. Sight in most wavelengths, x-ray vision, super hearing too, so I sort of specialize in airborne reconnaissance. I was working with a ground-based guy named Sooner up near the panhandle, on a rustling case, but that was about done when I heard about the girls, and I want to help.”

“Nice to meet you, El Gallo! I had considered Yellow Rose, or something softer, but I am more of a brawler and it seemed too girly. I got strength, some speed, invulnerability ... I am a tank, basically, so eyes in the sky would definitely be a good thing if we can find a place to start. They fill you in on the other girls?”

I told him about all five, and how the disappearances seemed to be heading north along the waterways. I had an idea that whoever was doing things might be waterborne or even based on one of the small islands in the lake. He agreed it sounded like a good place to start and we commiserated about the lack of Paladin-to-Paladin communications before agreeing to route everything through Austin.

He was going to take a couple of laps around the lake and down to where the earlier disappearances occurred and then, if he didn’t see anything obvious, he was going to get a nap in Austin and come back at night where his infra-red and thermal vision would be more useful, especially to see if boats in the lake were occupied or people were on the small islands that dotted the huge body of water.

Stymied, and knowing just riding around wasn’t going to be any good, I continued my circuit of the lake and transformed back a few miles later when I could find a good spot. I was glad to get back to normal too! I mean, I had practiced riding the bike in my transformed state, and I could do it safely, but mostly because I was invulnerable, not because it was inherently safe. In my head, I looked exactly as Mikey had described, hunched over the gas tank like a monkey fucking a football.

Of course, he went for a swim in the stock tank for saying it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t an apt description!

I was back home within an hour, a little depressed. I hadn’t found a damn thing and I was afraid I wouldn’t. Even beyond being a failure at this Paladin gig, I was worried about what was going on with those girls!

I didn’t hear from El Gallo until Wednesday night, and then nothing positive except to learn that four more Paladins were in the area because another girl had been taken. This one, the news didn’t know about yet and the entire Paladin force was out searching.

“Come, senorita, I find and you pound, si?” He asked, with a laugh. I think he knew I had expected the heavy accent and was teasing me!

“Si, El Gallo, we hunt!” I replied in Spanish. Most of our hands were Mexican or Mexican-American and I spoke Spanish as fluently as I spoke English and German.

We met up at the Falls Creek Winery, just north of Lake Buchanan, and were going to sweep north on both sides of the Colorado, until we hit Bend. If we didn’t find anything, we would search back towards the lake, and keep going until we hit Austin. The girl had gone missing at the lake shore on the northern end of Buchanan so we thought there was a chance they were still in the area.

The fliers Star, Sentinel, and El Gallo, would form up over the water, spread out with Gallo in the center since he had the widest range of frequency in his super powered senses. Coyote and I would take one side of the lake each, and Spirit would float (no pun intended) between teams and be the one who checked out anything that might be suspicions. He could get in and out without being sensed or seen, so he was the perfect one for the job.

I took a moment to meet each of the other Paladins, called in from all over the state, and made myself known to them as well. Daddy called it networking and that made as much sense as anything. I might need them in the future and vice versa. Besides, I am not going to lie and say I wasn’t just the littlest bit squeeee inside at meeting super heroes for real!

Sucks it had to be something like this.

The fliers launched and I ran three or four miles north until the river was narrow enough, less than two hundred yards, to jump. There were other places that were almost as narrow, but I was afraid of getting stuck in mud and sand if I didn’t land well above the waterline. I took over patrolling the eastern side on the ground as the fliers flew overhead. Coyote stayed on the western side of the river to cover that bank and we all moved north.

It didn’t take all that long to reach the Colorado Bend State Park, and the town of Bend just north of there. We patrolled through the town, and both Coyote and I made sure to stop at a few convenience stores and, in one case, to stop a State Police patrol car to let them know what we were doing and make sure they had the number to Control in Austin.

El Gallo, the only flier without enhanced strength, was still strong enough to carry Spirit since he, literally, weighed almost nothing! Star Child gave Coyote a lift and Sentinel gave me one, though I was uncomfortable with it. Still, he was a perfect gentleman and didn’t abuse my trust, so I was appreciative.

We all flew back to where we started and began again, this time heading south. It was going to take a hell of a lot longer, probably all night and into the morning, to scan Lake Buchanan and its surrounding population, but there was no help for it. We had to do this, hitting every boat, every cove, every little hump of dirt big enough to stand on out there.

Coyote and I stayed to the banks, of course, and he had an advantage in that he could track for scent and had the scent of the most recent missing girl. I was just ... strong. Still, I made it a point to hit every single street, no slacking, making my presence known. I stopped every time someone waved, to tell them what we were doing. If nothing else, maybe I could act as a bird dog, driving the prey towards the big guns.

Word was, evidently, getting out and by the time I reached Rocky Point, a large promontory that jutted just about a mile out into the lake, there was a van parked by the side of 690, the primary road circling the lake at that point. It had its blinkers on and two people waving flashlights with wands on then, like the guys at the airport use.

When I pulled up to see what was going on, thinking it was a motorist in trouble, I found two guys, one of them in a police officer’s uniform

“You’re Lone Star, right?” The guy not in uniform seemed very happy to meet me, bouncing on his toes, his eyes suspiciously bright.

“Yes, I am. You need help or something?”

“No, man, look, we have news! Oh, and water. You need some water?” The guy threw open an ice chest filled with ice and bottled water.

Okay... “News, you said?”

“Yeah! Look, we already called this in to the State Police, and they said they would tell your people, the Bureau people in Austin, right? They were supposed to let you guys know! Anyway, there was a houseboat anchored just off the point, kind of ratty looking, but no one came ashore. About an hour ago, there was a bunch of noise and activity, and they took off south in a big old hurry.

“We heard you guys was coming from Mable’s brother’s girl, she talked to you up by Burnette County Park, a little blonde girl? Anyway, so we thought it would be way cool to sort of see if we could meet up with you, let you know! And here you are! You are amazing, and so pretty too.”

I was wearing a mask. This guy was staring at my tits when he said it too, but whatever. If I got mad at every guy who looked at my tits, I would hate the whole male population.

The problem running through my head is that I had no way of directly contacting the fliers. We had to do something about this communication problem!

“You got road flares in that van?” I asked, getting a sliver of an idea.

“Sure ... here, let me ... Here you go!”

He handed me a pack of three flares and I thought for a second, then tucked two into my belt and lit one off, letting it burn bright for a second, and then launching it in an arc over the lake. The second one, I lit and threw straight up, but only a couple hundred feet. I wanted to draw eyes back to me, not lose another flare.

It worked! Sentinel swooped in and snagged the second flare on its downward trajectory, then landed next to me.

I filled him in on what the men had told me. “I haven’t heard anything from Control yet, so I don’t know what they know. If you would tell the others, I will contact Control.”

“Good plan, Lone Star. And thank you, citizens, that was very helpful of you!”

The two guys puffed out their chests with pride and made sure Sentinel had several waters for ‘the rest of yer team!’ before he took off. I shook hands with both, even let one take a picture, before calling Control and finding out the State Police had not contacted them. That was their battle to fight though, and mine was setting off to the water’s edge and south again, hoping to spot this houseboat.

The boat was spotted just a mile or so south. It had moved out to the middle of the lake where it was just a spot on the water and would have been hard to find if we hadn’t had super powered people actively looking for it.

It cracked me up when I saw the boat ... flying! It was coming right towards my shore, heading for a clear spot next to what was called the Lasso Loop on a smaller promontory south of Rocky Point. The boat was followed closely by El Gallo with, I assume, Spirit? Star Child had Coyote with her and they were trailing the procession. I was ready when the boat landed, anxious that no one escape without being questioned.

Before I could even hop up on the deck, Spirit appeared in front of me.

“There were two adults. I put them both to sleep, but this is not quite what we figured, Lone Star. Besides, as big and beautiful as you are, there is no way you are fitting through the doors and hatches, the ceiling is barely seven feet tall.”

I smiled, though he couldn’t see it, and shrank. It took me a second to gather the pleats again so I wasn’t flashing my boobs every time I moved, but I had gotten pretty good at it. My legs were spread wide to keep my shorts up too, but again, the pleats made them comfortable again in just a few seconds.

When I finished, I saw I had an audience, with all the Paladins standing around watching me!

“Excuse me, but a girl likes some privacy!” I said, embarrassed.

“Girl, if I could do that ... I’d let the whole world watch!” Coyote growled, getting a laugh from Star. Star was almost as big as my Lone Star guest form, at about seven and a half feet, but I guess she was like that always.

“Sorry, but I don’t usually do that in front of people.” I explained.

“Aren’t you vulnerable now?” Star Child asked, looking me over like I was a doll or something.

“Shake.” I said, sticking out my hand. Star Child was strong; probably stronger than most men, but not super strong like Sentinel or my guest form. She used localized gravity control to augment her strength and to allow her to fly, lift cars that sort of thing. When she grinned and tried to crush my hand, I had her on her knees. It was made even funnier for the observers because her hand was much, much larger than mine, so I just grabbed two fingers and squeezed.

After the laughter died down, I grinned at Star and tried to get back on track.

“This is fun and all, and I would love to do this more, but the boat?”

There were some embarrassed looks, but Spirit explained he had put everyone on the boat to sleep. It had been easy with some, harder with others, but we had a couple of hours before even the hardiest would wake up. It was, he explained, his only real offensive power, but it was very useful.

The outside of the houseboat was dilapidated. It was filthy looking, with garbage on the deck, stains and what looked like mildew. Chipped paint and rust. On an aluminum hulled, pontoon houseboat.

I leaned over and scratched at some of the rust and it flaked off under my fingernail! Even more curious, I hopped up on the deck and some of the garbage was actually screwed down to the wood deck to keep it from blowing, or getting washed, way!

I pulled open the main door, El Gallo, Spirit, and Sentinel following. Inside was ... immaculate. It was done in bright colors and there were bookshelves filled with children’s books, boxes filled with toys and bean bags everywhere. Sitting in one of two rockers was an old woman. She was dressed in an old-fashioned frock dress and there was an open book on her lap. Sprawled out on six small bean bags, and arranged in a semi-circle as if they had fallen asleep listening to a story, were six little girls.

“Santa is up at the helm.” Spirit said with a laugh, pointing his insubstantial finger towards a doorway. He wasn’t wrong, at least outwardly. The man who was asleep at the helm of the disguised boat could have been Santa on summer vacation. Red shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and a thick, white beard. He even had gotten some sun on his cheeks.

“What the actual hell is going on here?”

I heard Coyote give a yip from outside, so I stepped to the helm door and out on the upper deck. There were two county patrol cars, two Department of Public Safety patrol cars and about three dozen civilians gathering down there. I ducked back quickly, before I was spotted, and moved to the forward part of the deck in a crouch before transforming again.

I didn’t want to be known in my regular size; someone might connect that tall, masked blonde with me! It was much less likely for them to associate the GIANT blonde, right? That was my hope, anyway.

I saw El Gallo looking out the helm windscreen at me and holding up his hands. He had seen me transform back and was unsure why. I just waved him out and they all traipsed out to see what I had seen.

El Gallo tapped his temple and winked, then sprang into the air where his colorful costume was sure to catch the eye of those below.

“Please remain where you are and do not approach the boat, it is a crime scene.” He called out, drawing every eye. One of the State guys went for his gun, but found he was unable to even stand on his own when his knees sagged.

“Officer, that is a Paladin, and it would be a very bad idea to start shooting around civilians.” Star Child called out, shaking a finger at the poor, confused cop!

He was able to stand up again, but was sweating and looked sort of pale.

I hopped over the side and came down with a loud thump on the hard-packed sand.

“Who is in charge among the law enforcement groups present?” Sentinel asked, floating near my head, but speaking the to the cops.

The four officers looked back and forth, then a Department of Public Safety officer stepped forward. “I’m Sergeant Wilkins, State Patrol, and I am senior, so that would be me. What is going on here?”

“Sergeant, we are Paladins with the Bureau of Mutant Control. Inside that boat are the young girls that have gone missing over the last few weeks, six of them. They all appear to be healthy and happy, but someone needs to take control of the scene, the two adults aboard, continue the investigation and so on. We are here only to help put a stop to kidnappings.” Sentinel said seriously, waving his hand at the boat.

“The feds aren’t going to...” the Sergeant started to say, but Sentinel waved him off. “We are primarily tasked with assisting law enforcement when their resources are not enough or if doing so will reduce the chances of people being hurt or killed. Yes, we primarily patrol for Rogue activity, but we are also called in on jobs like this. It is, however, your case.”

“Okay, well, let me get my Lieutenant out here then!”

I called Control and found that Coyote had given them the basics and they had called the Staties. The county guys had come in response to a call about a flying boat! I filled the switchboard in on what was going on now, that we were handing it over to the local authorities, and they asked that we all file reports in the next twenty-four hours.

I relayed that to the gang, and they all acknowledged, then we gathered together with Sentinel lifting me, Star Child with Coyote, and El Gallo with Spirit. We landed again in the spot where we had started our night, back across the lake and north, at the winery.

We spent half an hour just tossing around ideas about what the hell that was all about, but one thing was universal, we were all very happy to see those girls alive and well! We broke up about then, it was almost four in the morning and, it appeared, most of us had day jobs or, in my case, school. It seemed strange to think of heroes with day jobs, but what else were they going to do all day?

I know I would be bored spitless, and have folks looked at me all side-eyed, if all I did was lay around all day. Folks in my town worked or they were considered bums. There were no indolent rich types around here!

We, the super crew, were all part-time heroes, after all, and we had to have some way to fit in, right? I mean, we didn’t have to, I guess, but, well, we all seemed to want to fit in.

Star Child did pull me aside and, in a cute, sort of embarrassed way, asked how old I was.

“You seem kinda young, but I know this thing that changed us does weird things. I just thought, you know that you are gorgeous and seem very nice and I wouldn’t be scared to hold your hand and ... stuff.”

I grinned at her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I am sixteen, a junior in high school.”

She acted like I had stuck her with a cattle prod and jumped back a bit, blushing brightly. “I didn’t know! Hey, um, look, just...” she paused, took a very obvious, very deep breath and started over. “If you call me the day you turn eighteen, and I am still single? Well...”

I laughed at her blustering, but she was beautiful and stacked, so ... I was not adverse to getting to know her better. I couldn’t help teasing a bit thought.

“You know, sixteen is a gray area, but seventeen is legal...”

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I dated a sixteen-year-old when I was eighteen and her family tried to have me locked up. Sure, sixteen was legal in Louisiana, but they still tried! Call me when you are eighteen, Lone Star, I will rock your world, but not a day sooner.” She told me, pretending to ward me off with a cross made with her index fingers.

We agreed to keep in contact, the whole group did, since we all needed people to talk to who ‘got it‘. We also all agreed to make it a point in our individual reports that communication was a critical need and Control needed to deal with the issue post haste!

It was five thirty in the morning when I got home. Daddy knew there was a chance I would be out all night, and wasn’t surprised when I rolled in about breakfast time. Glad, relieved and happy to see me, but not surprised.

It took three more days before we got any kind of feedback, a report on what the investigators found ... and it was not good.

First and foremost, in our minds, was that the guy who looked like Santa, really was a Santa! A professional one who had never had a run-in with the police in his life, and neither had his wife. The boat was registered to a shell corporation out of the Cayman Islands and was delivered, to the Marshall Ford Marina on Lake Travis and then sailed north by the Santas as they picked up girls.

The girls were all happy and healthy and convinced they had won a trip with Santa and Mrs. Clause because they had all been so good. In fact, they were all upset the trip had been cut short.

They were all, the girls, the kidnappers ... innocent. Center told us the State asked for help and the Bureau of Mutant Control brought in a mentalist ... a mind-reader, and they had all been controlled. The Santa couple had been highjacked from an RV park as patsies, and the girls were to be sold when they had enough ... though what number was enough wasn’t clearly defined.

Some Rogue power was playing with people’s lives and, right now, we had no idea who or what they were planning. Was this a test run? A lark? Was someone just checking on law enforcement in the area or, more sinister in my book, the Paladins?

Control believed, but wasn’t certain, that this Rogue had been active in Houston in recent months. There had been three incidents that stuck out in local law enforcement circles in that area.

In one, a young woman attending a seminary school doused herself in gasoline and then lit a match, while kneeling at the altar. In the second, a new teacher on his first day in class, had brought a pistol to school and killed six of his first period high school students before one of the students knifed him.

The third was the one that set Control to searching for more witnesses who could confirm or deny the involvement of a Rogue telepath. Three nurses, who were vocal anti-abortion activists, all worked at an inner-city clinic that gave free neonatal checkups to pregnant teens in the area. All three gave out Plan B pills, to more than thirty patients, over a seven-day period.

All three, after being arrested, denied doing any such thing but the video evidence from security cameras and the forged paperwork made it a slam dunk case for the prosecution. Two were knifed in jail, waiting for trial, but the third was moved into solitary and put on suicide watch, which also made the guards a lot more attentive, and Control would have their own pet telepath interview her as soon as possible.

On top of everything else, Catherine called me to tell me that the Bureau was considering restricting underaged Paladins to Search and Rescue operations only, and barring us from being involved with Rogues!

Someone had complained about a Paladin in Los Angeles who was only fifteen and wore a bikini ... a G-string bikini, to a rogue fight. She was involved in a battle with a Rogue speedster who was doing run-by snatches of jewelry, purses, watches and other valuables on Rodeo Drive and in Malibu. He had netted almost a million dollars in stolen goods in three days and this Paladin, ‘Jewel’ had lost her top when battling him on La Cienega Blvd!

She had been on a roof-top garden of a nearby condo, tanning with a friend of hers, when she heard a scream and looked over the side. The speedster, El Relampago, sped by underneath her perch and she had dropped over the edge of the roof to follow him. She caught him, he was taking it easy since no one had ever been fast enough to challenge him, but in the struggle, her top had come loose. Fortuitous for her, since he froze and stared long enough for her to lay him out!